


Lunch with Friends

by kalirush



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Friendship, Gen, Guns, Maybe a little bit of low-grade PTSD, Or at least just needing to process some stuff, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:09:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23046799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalirush/pseuds/kalirush
Summary: Riza hears a knock on her door.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25
Collections: Purimgifts 2020





	Lunch with Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reconditarmonia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconditarmonia/gifts).



> Many thanks to my beta and artist, songofsunset!

There was a knock on her door. 

Riza jumped, reaching for her holstered pistol. She laid her book down and moved carefully to the door, Hayate on her heels.

Whoever it was on the other side of the door knocked again, vigorously, and Riza relaxed. The homunculi were dead, she reminded herself. The coup was over. The traitors in the military were gone. And if any of them weren’t as gone as they seemed, it was unlikely that any of those parties would knock on her door over and over while calling “Riiiiiizaaaaa we know you’re in there, answer the door!”

Rebecca grinned at her as she swung the door open, a slightly uncertain-looking Maria Ross at her elbow. “We’ve come to get you out of the house!” she said. “We know you’re just moping around in there.”

“I’m not moping around,” Riza protested. “I’m on medical leave.”

Rebecca shouldered past her into the room, scooping Hayate off the ground and rubbing her face into his fur. “Same thing,” she said, cheerfully. “Such a good boy!”

“You’re going to spoil him,” Riza said. “Hello, Maria. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” Maria said. Then she shrugged. “Well, you know. My parents are still crying because I’m not dead and how could I be so heartless, and I don’t have a place to live, but…”

“She’s staying with me for the time being!” Rebecca announced. She dropped Hayate into Maria’s arms and pointed at Riza. “Okay, let’s get Hayate’s leash and get moving! We have places to be.”

“Which places?” Riza asked skeptically, but she was gathering her shoes and her purse anyway. “And why do you have a place to stay in Central anyway?”

“I had to have somewhere to park the ice cream truck,” Rebecca said, primly.

Which places turned out to be a café, at least to start. Rebecca didn’t say it outright, but Riza suspected her of being worried that Riza wasn’t eating enough. She kept offering Riza bites of things, in between a running commentary about Grumman’s latest moves (Riza kept mental notes to share with Colonel Mustang later), the impossibility of finding a decent man in this town, and the crazy things her mother kept saying. 

Maria, on the other hand, did not attempt to feed Riza, which Riza was grateful for. She seemed mostly content to eat quietly and let Rebecca be Rebecca enough for the three of them.

After lunch, the next stop was a gun range- a civilian range, Riza noted, and not one she’d ever visited before. Riza had her own pistol, of course, but she noted that Maria and Rebecca were also carrying service weapons with them.

“Alright, Riza,” Rebecca said, grinning, “Let’s see if you’ve lost your touch!” Maria smiled at her, too, not quite rolling her eyes at Rebecca, and helped tie Hayate to a post outside.

Then they were in the range, and Hawkeye lifted her gun and fired. Three shots before she’d even thought about it, all perfectly center mass, one hole in the center of the paper. 

Then her thoughts caught up to her. Roy’s face, white and desperate. The calm, sure belief that she was about to die. The fourth shot punched through the paper a centimeter wide of the first three.

Gods fighting in the courtyard, and her with only a pistol and a blind alchemist to fight back.

The fifth shot _missed_. 

Riza stopped, overcome for a moment by the shock of it. 

There was a hand on her shoulder, and Maria was there, nodding like someone who understood. Riza breathed. You never got anywhere by rushing, she’d learned. You had to breathe, and hold, and wait. 

"I kept seeing Brigadier-General Hughes, for a while," Maria said, quietly. "And that thing that General Mustang burned that day." 

Then Rebecca came around the side of the partition, and wrapped her and Maria both in a massive hug, smashing Riza’s face into her be-sweatered shoulder. “I can’t believe I beat you!” she squealed. “You better not have let me win,” she added, winking. 

Riza smiled despite herself, leaning helplessly into Rebecca. “I would never let you win,” she said. “But thanks for taking me out today.”

“I’m glad you said that,” Rebecca said. “Wait till you find out where we’re going for dessert.”

"Hold on," Riza said. The others stepped back. She lifted the gun, lined up her shot, fired. Perfectly center mass, right through the first hole in the paper. "Let's go get some dessert," she said, with a small smile."


End file.
